Developer Diaries

FlatOut - Dev Diary #3

A look at the last steps in the development process before going gold.

Here's the good news: this is it! Or very, very close to it. No, we're not "gold" yet as of writing, but all the to-do lists on our project server are showing "OK" or "95%" for almost all tasks. FlatOut is coming, and it's arriving with force!

We'll have fierce competition in September and October, but we feel confident on delivering what gamers have wished for. We are tweaking the menus, balancing gameplay, hunting and eliminating bugs, and so on. It's the usual final run of the development cycle, seemingly easy but not to be taken lightly, as it's actually the most important part. So far we haven't run into any major catches, and things look good. Marketing is about to start, homepages are about to hit the web, and we're looking forward to the first reviews and comments.

Right now, in this room, there's split-screen camera adjustments, ragdoll driver screenshots capturing, and a game flowchart being done to help the testing team at Empire. And then there's me, writing this diary. After I finish this, I'll be taking screenshots using one of the Xbox development kits scattered around the office. We tried capturing frames from a DV video in a hurry, but the quality was horrible.

Track designers are currently doing minor optimizations and visual modifications to the tracks, while fixing minor things such as fence posts in air (inches only, a thing nobody would notice unless they knew). Cars are finished, and only modifications will be done in case testers notice any bugs. Code is nearly done, only some gameplay functions and tweakings left.

Ragdoll physics in action!

We'll be polishing and honing everything to the last minute, not because it's needed, but because we want FlatOut to be the leader of the pack. As you can guess, at this stage everybody does what they can, regardless of what their normal work is. The team has a huge drive to finish and fine-tune FlatOut into a polished racer that's massively fun to play on all platforms. All the efforts are now bearing fruit.

You might think we've had an overdose of the game already, but the simple fact is we still enjoy playing it. From time to time there's loud shouting and applauding coming from the conference room as people get into the ragdoll groove with the stunt modes. Over and over again. Which reminds me, have I mentioned how mind bogglingly cool it is to play FO with four-player split-screen on a large projector screen? My apologies if I haven't. It's no wonder people working at the other offices in this building keep giving us a sideways look. I guess you could say we're the "dynamic" company of the building, so to speak...

There have been moments when somebody has had the urge to hurl a monitor or a co-worker out the window, but that's all part of the creative process. It happens in any game-dev studio. No, really, ask any British developer. They're famous for things like that, and don't ask how I know. However, 99% of the time it's been smooth sailing.

That's it from today. Perhaps next time I'll cover the gold party, hangovers and all!